Meet the Pokemon expert revealing the series' most obscure secrets

(Image credit: The Pokemon Company)

Do you bed the sterling amount of damage a single Pokemon can do in a single wrench? How about which type matchups haven't shown up in the serial publication' 25-yr history, Oregon which of the series' 900 mons pubis is the only one that buttocks't learn normal type moves?

If this is all start to sound a bit like the world's hardest Pokemon quiz, never fear. The answers to those questions (and scores more like them) are the work of a Pokemon expert who has spent the close 10 months uncovering and sharing the just about obscure details from the past deuce decades of Pokemon.

At the start of this year, Reddit user Mx_Toniy_4869 posted their best Obscure Pokemon Fact to the game's subreddit, rest home to 3.5 meg fans. That fact – chosen due to its relevance to the series' most recent generation – outlined the implicit strengths of the Obstagoon victimised by Pokemon Sword and Shield gymnasium leader Piers. The punk's signature Pokemon is not lonesome outrageously tanky, it's also the only Pokemon to have had its stats forthwith tinkered with by the game's developers, a decisiveness that Toniy explains is a result of Piers being the only gymnasium leader unable to require advantage of the game's Dynamax mechanic.

Since share-out that fact, Toniy's isolated facts have appeared connected the subreddit every weekday. Recently, the series passed the 200 mark with a office indicatory that the Hoenn Safari Zone – an area knowing to grant players access to rare Pokemon – doesn't contain whatsoever creatures from its have coevals.

Gotta learn it all!

Toniy's first appearance to Pokemon came when they were viii years quondam, via an unofficial handbook they received from their cousin. That gift sparked a tenner-long fascination with the serial, which Toniy fostered away any means possible; their first stake was an emulated version of Pokemon Azure, eventually followed up with a pirated encounter Pokemon Diamond. It wasn't until 2013's Pokemon X that they'd play their first legitimate rendering of the gritty, but clearly they'd been hooked long in front that.

The inspiration fanny the project stemmed "when I realised that a great deal of Pokemon knowledge I thinking was commonly famed among Pokemon fans was in fact not swell known at all." That knowledge comes from a variety of sources, including conversations on Reddit or entries along wiki sites like Bulbapedia. Others, however, stem from Toniy's own experiences in-game. One post – virtually the dynamic ways in which the move Bide interacts with Ghost-type Pokemon – was uncovered when Toniy's Frosslass was tragically eliminated during a Diamond Nuzlocke run.

Toniy's facts pass an amazing gamut of Pokemon history. Whatever are almost terrifyingly mathematical – walls of Book of Numbers that outline the complex intricacies and inconsistencies rump individual moves. Others are single-sentence posts that might excuse something equally elementary as the fact that Bronzor looks the equal none count which way up you look at it. Respective posts believe unique quirks of the games maps and music, piece many Thomas More try to outline the many, many coding errors that made their way into the foremost games – i joke post, uploaded on April 1, suggested that Scarlet and Gloomy "are made of fleck paper and held together by a glue stick." That mightiness seem wish a slightly mealy assessment, until you view something care fact number cardinal, which explains wherefore unreal fire-typecast Moltres doesn't get its version of the powerful elemental move that its Ice and Tense counterparts receive:

Patc the astuteness of Toniy's is extremely effectual, IT's not myriad. Current plans leave imag the daily translation of the series brought to an end after 251 facts. Of course, that's not just an arbitrary count – Pokemon #251 is Celebi, the last Pokemon in the plot's second multiplication, which Nintendo once famously planned to be the end of the series. A residential area arsenic passionate as Pokemon, and like the upcoming Intelligent Diamond/Shining Pearl and Pokemon Legends: Arceus, however, is likely to turn up plenty more facts in emerging.

For the speculative; under certain (very particularized) circumstances, Shuckle is able to hatful 577 million damage in a single turn; there are 17 type matchups that have never made their way to the pun; and Weedle is the only Pokemon incapable of learning a single normal-type move . And if it's of a sudden time to grind up, get off to a flight take up with our lean of the high-grade Pokemon games .

I'm GamesRadar's lieutenant news editor in chief, working with Ben T across our gaming news articles. I started my journalistic career piece getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor in chief along the student newspaper publisher, The Boar. Since then, I've run the tidings sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku U.K., and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. Atomic number 3 you might exist able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you lav regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.